A SHOOTING IN LANCASTER

Angel Mendez, 30, and Jennifer Garcia, 27, were assuredly not model citizens. Yet they were not suspected of any crime when a specialized Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department team reportedly blew through the door of the backyard shack where they were living.

The members of the “COPS HIT” team (the unfortunately conceived acronym for “Community-Oriented Policing Services High-Impact Team”) reportedly entered the shack without knocking, calling out, or identifying themselves. They had evidently come to the shack looking for a parolee who had gone AWOL from his court-ordered drug rehab. They’d gotten a tip that he might have gone to the Mendez/Garcia shack. Or not. It might have been somewhere else.

Within seconds two of the team unloaded a total of fifteen bullets into Angel Mendez and Jennifer Garcia.

In this week’s LA Weekly, reporter Patrick Range McDonald delves into the story of the shooting, the subsequent response of the sheriff’s department, and the civil case that has recently finished and now awaits a judicial verdict.

Here are two clips—one from near the first of the stort, the second from near the end.

Conley opened the shack door with his department-issued 9mm semiautomatic Beretta drawn. Mendez, who had on the bed a Daisy Powerline rifle-style BB gun that he used for shooting rats, sat up and moved the BB gun to the floor. Conley opened fire. A bullet ripped into Mendez’s right forearm, passed through it and struck his right leg — proof, his attorneys today say, that he was reaching down to put the BB gun on the floor when shot.

“I didn’t even know it was them,” Mendez later told Sheriff’s Homicide Sgt. Robert Gray. “They didn’t say ‘police’! They didn’t say ‘freeze’! They didn’t say ‘drop the weapon’! They said nothing, sir.”

Conley and Pederson fired at will, peppering the couple with 14 more bullets, one of which struck the seven-months-pregnant Garcia in the right upper back and shattered her collarbone. Mendez was critically injured, hit multiple times in his right leg, arm, back and side; blood poured from his wounds. Weeks later, his badly fractured right leg, whose key arteries had been sliced in half, had to be amputated.

In a disturbing videotape taken minutes after the shooting, as a paramedic worked to stop the bleeding, police can be clearly heard pressuring Mendez to say he’d pointed the BB gun at Conley. Mendez begs the people around him, “Oh, please, don’t let me die, sir!” then turns his head toward neighbor Charles Green, who is witnessing the drama, and tells Green: “I never pointed the gun at him, Charlie!”

And pages later…a second clip:

Tom Parker, the former head of L.A.’s FBI office, read the Sheriff’s and L.A. County District Attorney reports on the Mendez shooting, as well as David Drexler’s opening statement at trial. He has come to suspect that COPS HIT and TOP were engaged in the “very common” practice of “testi-lying” after a bad shoot.

Parker is a retired 24-year veteran of the FBI whose distinguished career included undercover investigations, police corruption and brutality cases and investigations of agent-involved shootings. Last year, the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara gave him a Heroes of Justice Award for his work on criminal-justice reform.

Parker says police sometimes lie about “drug houses” to justify unjustifiable searches. But he has even more fundamental doubts than that in the Angel Mendez case. He questions whether a deputy ever saw big, white Ronnie O’Dell at Albertsons or whether the purported informant even existed.

“From that point forward,” Parker says, referring to the deputies’ huddle outside Albertsons, “there’s really faulty police procedures happening here.” Nobody saw O’Dell leave Albertsons, so the deputies were not in a “hot pursuit” to Paula Hughes’ home. Nor was there any clear and immediate threat to the public.

Parker says, “Without a warrant or substantial probable cause … you don’t have a right to go into the backyard and search through buildings, never mind the shack.” He says the killing of Paula Hughes’ German shepherd was wrong. “If you’ve got no right to be on the property, you’ve got no right to shoot the dog.”

Professor O’Donnell agrees that if there’s not an emergency, “You need to have a warrant to go into someone’s house.” But he notes that due to institutional pressures, officers and their commanders often feel they can’t admit they were wrong.

O’Donnell adds, “If you can’t be truthful, then what are your reports going to say?”

Parker explains, “If you operate from the premise that [police] had no right to be there, that damages the self-protection aspect of the shooting. … Angel and Jennifer are innocent victims in this situation.”

O’Donnell says it’s also “interesting” that Mendez was not prosecuted for pointing an imitation gun. “He basically didn’t do a crime,” the professor says. “He was sitting in his home.”

The sheriff’s department’s own Internal Affairs investigation cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, as did the OIR—the Office of Independent Review—and the LA DA’s office.

There’s much more to the story so read the rest here.

SUE REAMS GETS HER SON BACK AFTER 3-STRIKES AND 17 YEARS

Anyone who has reported on 3-Strikes reform has probably met or talked to Sue Reams, one of the front line 3-Strikes reform activists. Reams started her campaign to change the law after her son went away on a life sentence.

The day before Easter of this year, she and her husband were able to bring her son home from prison.

NPR’s Ina Jaffe has the story. Here’s the audio. And her’s a clip from the text:

…Before that moment, Shane had served about 17 years of his potential life sentence. He got his third strike for being involved in the sale of a $20 rock of cocaine. He says he was a bystander. The prosecution said he was a lookout. But it was Shane’s first two strikes that caused his mother such heartache, as she said in a 2009 interview with NPR. She’d been trying to get her son off drugs, she explained. Nothing seemed to work, so she tried tough love.

“Tough love tells you that you take a stand,” she said. “So I took a stand.”

That meant when her son stole some stuff from her house — and from the neighbors — to get money for drugs, Reams insisted he turn himself in. She even drove him to the police station. She told him: “Maybe you’ll get a drug program. You need a drug program.”

Instead he got convicted of two counts of residential burglary. A few years later when he got picked up on the drug charge, those burglaries counted as his first two strikes….

THE TEEN COURT OPTION

Los Angeles has a remarkable teen court program that we’ve visited and will report on in the future, but here’s a report on a teen court in Napa, California that is doing good things.

Michael Waterson writing for the Napa Valley Register has the story. Here’s a clip:

Recognizing the power of peer pressure, Napa County’s juvenile justice system attempts to harness it for positive behavioral change through a peer court program where teens judge teens.

Peer Court came to American Canyon on Thursday. A young defendant was tried in City Hall chambers by youth lawyers who presented the case to a teenage jury and Napa County Family Court Commissioner Monique Langhorne-Johnson. The young attorneys were mentored by real lawyers from the Napa Bar Association or experienced Peer Court youths.

The young defendant, who because of his age can’t be identified, had been arrested for allegedly smoking marijuana and concentrated cannabis. A high school senior and a good student with a 3.27 grade point average, the defendant said he used marijuana more than once for joint pain in his knees and shoulder. He said a doctor told him surgery was not an option to correct his pain.

On the day he was caught smoking with a friend in a parked car, he said he had come from work where he had stood on his feet all day. Because of his arrest, he has been given a curfew by his parents, he said.

In addition to observing another Peer Court proceeding, writing an essay about it and serving on a peer jury, student prosecutors Eric McFarland and Acee Echevarria called for the defendant to put in eight hours of community service and complete a drug education class.

A 16-year-old student at American Canyon High School, McFarland said he has always loved the idea of being a lawyer. His middle name, Kazi, means “lawyer” in the Bengali dialect he said.

Echevarria, also 16 and an American Canyon student, said he is fascinated by the law, so much so he sometimes travels to Napa to sit in on random court proceedings.

“I first heard of it in class,” Echevarria said about Peer Court. “I fell in love with the program….”

Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department via LA Weekly

HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY GIDEON V. WAINWRIGHT – THE RIGHT TO AN ATTORNEY

We have all heard the text of the Miranda warning recited in films and on episodic TV shows at least a zillion times:

You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
You have the right to an attorney.
If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.

What most of us don’t know or don’t remember is the fact that the last line—the thing about a lawyer being provided for those who can’t afford one—is a right that is only half a century old.

Monday, March 18, marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright, which guarantees the right to counsel for criminal defendants in state courts who
cannot afford an attorney.

But, despite this remarkable Supreme Court decision that changed American legal history, and despite the hard work of many dedicated public defenders, the system, say experts, is close to broken, with overloaded public defenders often able to spend little more than 3 hours on a clients entire case.

The AP’s Mark Sherman has a story on the topic. Here’s a clip:

….So that was the promise of Gideon — that a competent lawyer for the defense would stand on an equal footing with prosecutors, and that justice would prevail, at least in theory.

A half-century later, there are parts of the country where “it is better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former prosecutor. Leahy said court-appointed lawyers often are underpaid and can be “inexperienced, inept, uninterested or worse.”

Regardless of guilt or innocence, few of those accused of crimes are rich, while 80 percent say they are too poor to afford a lawyer.

People who work in the criminal justice system have become numb to the problems, creating a culture of low expectations, said Jonathan Rapping, a veteran public defender who has worked in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and New Orleans.

Rapping remembers walking into a courtroom in New Orleans for the first time for a client’s initial appearance before a judge. Several defendants in jump suits were shackled together in one part of the courtroom. The judge moved briskly through charges against each of the men, with a lawyer speaking up for each one.

Then he called a name and there was no lawyer present. The defendant piped up. “The guy said he hadn’t seen a lawyer since he was locked up 70 days ago. And no one in the courtroom was shocked. No one was surprised,” Rapping said.

A new award-winning documentary called “Gideon’s Army” gives a visceral feeling for the problem, and the idealism of some of the young public defenders who are trying to make a difference, despite the odds.

GIRLS & BOYS ARE DIFFERENT—SO WHY DO WE PRETEND OTHERWISE WHEN WE LOCK THEM UP?

The juvenile justice system was—and in most ways still is—-designed for boys. And that’s a problem.

Yes, boys greatly outnumber girls in the justice system but girls’ numbers have been growing. Between 1991 and 2003, girls’ detentions rose by 98 percent, compared to a 29 percent increase in boys’
detentions.

More recently, as the number of juvenile arrests has dropped in the U.S., the drop is far bigger for boys than for girls. (In 2010, boys’ arrests had decreased by 26.5 percent since 2001, while girls’ arrests had decreased by only 15.5 percent.)

Girls come into detention facilities for different reasons and with different needs from those of their male counterparts, and yet they are often treated with a cookie cutter sameness.

For instance, 19 percent of boys in juvenile detention facilities had tried to commit suicide, while 44 percent of girls had.

In terms of physical abuse, the split was 22 percent boys, 42 percent girls.

And 8 percent of boys admitted to being sexually abused; 35 percent of girls had been sexually abused.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to differences—and the needs they suggest.

The Sunday LA Times has a story by Anna Gorman on the subject. And it is an important topic that we’ll continue to return to over the next year.

Here’s a clip from Gorman’s report:

Latrice lifts the sleeve of her gray sweatshirt to reveal small, dark lines — scars from slicing her forearm over and over to drown out pain from years of sexual abuse. She says she was an alcoholic, dropped out of school in the eighth grade and got pregnant at 16.

Now 18, she is in Los Angeles County’s juvenile justice system because she violated probation. Latrice says she has been locked up more than 20 times in four years. Petite and talkative, she has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and takes antidepressants.

Her health issues — and those of about 9,400 girls in juvenile detention centers around the nation — are serious and complex. Many of the girls don’t have regular doctors, so their physical and emotional problems often go undiagnosed and untreated. That continues when they enter a system that was designed for boys and has been slow to adapt to girls.

“Their health needs are different; they are more severe and more complicated than boys’,” said Catherine Gallagher, a George Mason University professor and an expert in juvenile justice. “They come in underserved…. They remain underserved.”

More than one-third of girls in custody nationwide have a history of sexual abuse, compared with 8% of boys. Girls also have had more physical abuse, suicide attempts and drug-related problems, according to the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Few juvenile justice centers have shown they meet minimum healthcare standards, and girls are less likely than boys to get the care they need.

Both the Atlantic Monthly and NPR did good stories —both by reporter Jenny Gold—on the needs of girls that are worth reading and/or listening.

Here, also is one of the studies from the Department of Justice with some of the facts and figures.

SHERIFF LEE BACA AGAIN PROPOSES NEARLY $1 NEW BILLION JAIL

Christina Villacorte of the Daily News has the story:

With the inmate population steadily increasing, Sheriff Lee Baca will ask the Board of Supervisors Tuesday to study replacing the dilapidated and violence-plagued Men’s Central Jail with a $932.8-million high-tech facility, and consider relying more on electronic monitoring devices and other alternatives to incarceration.

The proposal at this stage is to hire a contractor to prepare a conceptual design and environmental impact review.

In a letter to the board, Baca and county chief executive officer William Fujioka said it was “critical” to begin the process of replacing the aging MCJ with a more efficient facility that would hold high-security and medical inmates.

The proposed new jail would be built on the site of the half-century-old MCJ in downtown Los Angeles. It is envisioned to house up to 3,500 high-security and medical inmates in two towers.

Baca and County CEO are also scheduled to ask for $22 million in order to restore adequate patrols in the county’s unincorporated areas. (So what happened to that independent audit that was going to be done on the department’s budget to find out where the money was going. Here’s that story—also from Villacorte at the DN.

LASD DEPUTIES SNAP PHOTOS TO HELP PREVENT MISTAKEN IDENTIFICATION

Under a new program, certain LASD deputies are now armed with cameras in an effort to lower the number of innocent people jailed as a result of mistaken identity. A December 2011 LA Times report showed that almost 1,500 wrongful incarcerations took place over the last five years, although the number has been declining.

The LA Times’ Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard have the story. Here’s a clip:

Along with his Taser, baton and handgun, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Det. David Huelsen has a new tool for meting out justice: a point-and-shoot camera.

The Malibu traffic detective is among a handful of cops the Sheriff’s Department has equipped with digital cameras as part of an effort to reduce the number of innocent people jailed after being mistaken for wanted criminals.

The reforms come after a Times investigation detailed how authorities in the county had incarcerated people mistaken for wanted criminals more than 1,480 times over five years. Some spent weeks behind bars before the errors were realized. In recent months, other law enforcement agencies around the country have also been confronted with the problem, but the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is emerging as one of the leaders in attempting to solve it.

Deputies are using the cameras to take photos of people who get cited but don’t have ID. If a defendant misses court appearances and becomes the subject of an arrest warrant, officials hope having the photos on file will avoid cases of mistaken identity.

US NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS DISCUSSES DNA SAMPLING ON ALL FELONY ARRESTS

An eleven-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals deliberated for an hour Wednesday on whether or not the mandatory collection of DNA from anyone facing a felony charge was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, as an unreasonable search and seizure.

San Jose Mercury’s Howard Mintz has the story. Here’s a clip:

The majority of the judges expressed particular concern that the DNA is taken from people regardless of whether they are later charged or convicted of a crime. The arguments were the latest round in an American Civil Liberties Union challenge to the nine-year-old DNA collection law.

9th Circuit Judge N. Randy Smith grilled a deputy attorney general, insisting there is no reason California’s law should permit DNA collection at the point of arrest.

“I don’t see what the government loses by putting it off until conviction, or until a judge looks at it … or at least the prosecutor looks at it, rather than just the police look at it,” said Smith, a Republican appointee of former President George W. Bush.

9th Circuit Judge Raymond Fisher also expressed reservations about the government seizing a person’s genetic map at the point of arrest. The ACLU case was filed on behalf of several people who were arrested and never charged with a crime, yet were forced to provide DNA samples.

“Now if I’m arrested, I wind up leaving behind in the custody of the government the intimate details of my medical condition, my heritage, whatever is in that DNA sample,” Fisher said to Deputy Attorney General Daniel Powell.

(We’ll let you know when the court hands down a decision.)

MONEY BAIL IS A COSTLY FAILURE, SAYS REPORT

A new report from the Justice Policy Institute calls money bail a discriminatory policy that adds billions in taxpayer costs without increasing public safety. The report also outlines proven alternative pretrial detention and release services. Here’s a clip from the press release:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last year that taxpayers spend over $9 billion in jail costs alone to keep people in pretrial detention. Meanwhile, people who are held in jail while awaiting a court date may lose their job and housing. Their children and families may suffer from not having that person in the home taking care of his or her responsibilities. People who are jailed while awaiting trial are also more likely to be found guilty and go to prison than their counterparts who are free. This is for a variety of reasons, including the impact of enduring harsh jail conditions, reduced access to defense attorneys, inability to maintain the types of social and personal responsibilities, and the reality that showing up in shackles and a jail jumpsuit creates an impression of guilt on judges and juries.

“Our constitution and laws are supposed to protect the presumption of innocence,” said Dr. Melissa Neal, author of Bail Fail and senior research associate at JPI. “Yet thousands of people are held in jails before trial because they don’t have access to money for bail. This is a waste of taxpayer money and it causes tremendous collateral consequences to those being unnecessarily incarcerated.”

The report shows how the average bail amount for people who are detained has more than doubled from $39,800 in 1992 to $89,900 in 2006. This is despite evidence that higher bail amounts are not related to more public safety and that people who are unable to afford money bail are often a lower risk of dangerousness or failure to appear in court – the two legal justifications to incarcerate someone pretrial – than those who can make bail.

[SNIP]

Bail Fail points to pretrial service (PTS) agencies, in particular, as effective in protecting public safety, ensuring people appear in court, reducing jail populations and their costs, as well as, leveling the playing field so that all people, regardless of income, have their rights protected. By using validated risk assessment instruments, PTS agencies can determine if a person is high, medium or low risk for dangerousness or failing to appear in court. They also can provide appropriate services that increase a person’s likelihood of pretrial success, including supervision and monitoring, referrals to drug treatment, and referrals to social service agencies to address other issues a person may be facing.

The report notes that Washington, D.C., through effective use of its Pretrial Services Agency, has successfully moved away from money bail. In D.C., 80 percent of people charged with an offense are released on nonfinancial bail options to await resolution of their charge while 15 percent are kept in pretrial detention. Only 5 percent are released using some form of financial bail, but there is no use of for-profit bail bondsmen services. The Pretrial Services Agency has reported that 88 percent successfully complete the pretrial process by appearing in court and not being rearrested.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FOSTER FAMILY AND ADOPTION AGENCY RECRUITS RESOURCE FAMILIES FOR LGBT YOUTH

Southern California Foster Family and Adoption Agency, SCFFAA, is recruiting, training, and certifying prospective foster parents of LBGT youth. The agency is searching out those families and environments that can foster love and acceptance for LGBT kids who so often face grim hardships in foster care and in life on the streets.

Digital Journal has the press release. Here’s a clip:

The Child Welfare League of America reports that LGBT youth are “disproportionately represented” in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Studies show that approximately 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT and that well over half of these youth stay on the street because they feel “safer there than living in group or foster homes.” Social workers across the country have long struggled to find foster and adoptive families that can provide LGBT adolescents with the support they need during the transition to young adulthood.

Sylvia Fogelman, Southern California Foster Family and Adoption Agency’s (SCFFAA) President & CEO, shares her concern for these youth. “Children who self-identify as LGBT in the foster care system are faced with extra challenges. Too often, they are displaced from their homes, then face extreme challenges in finding safe shelter.”

Southern California Foster Family and Adoption Agency (SCFFAA) is taking a bold step in its efforts to develop a targeted recruitment of resource families for LGBT foster youth. It has partnered with RaiseAChild.US, a non-profit organization that encourages LGBT people to build their families through fostering and adoption.

Rich Valenza, Founder & President of RaiseAChild.US explains the four phase plan designed to find viable solutions for LGBT youth. “We have created a survey, located at our website, http://www.RaiseAChild.US and invite the general public across the nation to participate, to help us to measure attitudes and concerns about fostering and adoption. After analyzing the data, we will build an infrastructure of support to address those concerns. Then, we go back to the public with a campaign to educate, advocate and recruit safe and loving homes for these children.”

Over the past 18 months, RaiseAChild.US has run three campaigns in Los Angeles, engaging over 500 prospective parents, with 400 attending recruitment events. SCFFAA is now training and certifying many of these recruits.

Robyn Harrod, SCFFAA Adoption Program Director, explains the goals of the collaboration. “Foster youth who self-identify as LGBT need many of the same things all youth need—but above all, acceptance. There are many prospective foster parents who can provide this—our task is to educate and cultivate these homes for this chronically neglected segment of our foster population.”

NEW YORK’S PILOT PROGRAM DIVERTS KIDS AWAY FROM CONVENTIONAL COURT SYSTEM

An experimental juvenile justice program is being piloted in nine NY courtrooms, called “adolescent diversion parts.” The program gives 16 and 17-year-old kids a chance to bypass the court system—where they would be considered adults—in favor of alternatives such as counseling, classes, and community-based programs. And it seems to be working—the Brooklyn courtroom sees an 80% compliance rate on ordered treatments from defendants.

Reuter’s Joseph Ax has the story. Here’s how it opens:

Nelson Reyes, 17, stood in a Long Island courtroom on a recent weekday, awaiting his fate on what was originally a felony drug possession charge.

But this was no ordinary hearing.

Reyes’ father accompanied his son in the attorneys’ well – a rare sight in a criminal courtroom — and Nassau County District Court Judge Sharon Gianelli’s benevolent tone was more that of a guidance counselor than a criminal judge.

“I have been monitoring your treatment,” Gianelli said, after thanking Reyes’ father for his support. “It is my hope that you’ll continue with the treatment and the counseling.”

And with that, Reyes’ criminal case was dismissed, his record cleansed and, he said after the hearing, his life put back on track.

Reyes is part of a tiny minority of 16- and 17-year-old defendants in New York being given a chance to bypass the regular criminal court system, where he would have been treated as an adult and likely received probation, a mark that could imperil future employment and educational opportunities.

New York is one of two states (North Carolina is the other) in which defendants 16 and older are considered adults, no matter how minor the offense. But that might be changing.

The courtroom in which Reyes appeared is one of nine “adolescent diversion parts,” a pilot program set up this year to provide non-traditional outcomes for 16- and 17-year-old nonviolent offenders.

A bill to establish these courtrooms statewide as part of a new “youth division” – a hybrid of criminal and family courts — stalled in the state legislature this summer, leaving it in limbo until 2013.

MISS AMERICA’S FIRST-HAND TAKE ON GROWING UP WITH AN INCARCERATED PARENT

Current Miss America, Laura Kaeppeler—an unlikely keynote speaker at the most recent American Correctional Association conference—shared her thoughts and personal experience regarding the considerable adversities kids with incarcerated parents face on a daily basis. (There are currently more than 1.7M kids with a parent behind bars. Be sure to scroll down for more statistics from the Prison Fellowship.)

Youth Today’s Robert Rosenbloom has the story. Here’s a clip:

…Miss America had an unexpected personal story that the crowd was very much interested in.

You see this Miss America is the child of an incarcerated parent. She spoke of the trauma faced by children like her with a passion born of experience; a family that struggled with the shame of an incarcerated father, the loss of economic stability and the anger that could have taken a self-destructive path.

She told us how it was difficult to go to school and face the other children who made fun of her and that she felt somehow guilty in an indescribable way. The father’s incarceration led to her parent’s divorce. Difficult as it was, she and her two sisters visited her father in prison.

“If visiting parents in prison is supposed to help heal wounds and keep family bonds connected, nothing about the experience helped foster that,” she explained in her address to the convention.

It was just one more regular reminder of the devastation her father visited upon her family. But she did help us all understand that creating the best possible experience for children visiting incarcerated parents is just as important as offender counseling.

Creating a good visitation experience also translates to juvenile secure facilities. We know that many children in juvenile facilities are parents of children and helping incarcerated young parents nurture bonds with their children helps them both. The statistics are alarming for both adult and juveniles that are incarcerated. The children of incarcerated individuals have a higher rate of crime and delinquency.

Approximately 1.7 million children in the nation have a parent in prison or jail, according to a 2009 report by the Sentencing Project. More than 10 million children have had a parent spend time behind bars, according to theAnnie E. Casey Foundation.

These children face the difficulties of growing up with this additional burden. Child neglect, drug use and dropping out of school are all by-products of failing to cope with the situation.

Our Miss America, Laura Kaeppeler, overcame the odds. She found support and encouragement. A smart girl with talent was pointed in the right direction, but she admits it could have easily gone down another less productive path.

The Prison Fellowship has compiled a wealth of facts about children with incarcerated parents. Here are a few:

—Since 1997, the frequency of contact between children and their parents in federal prison has dropped substantially; monthly contact has decreased by 28 percent, while those who report never having contact has increased by 17 percent (Sentencing Project/Research and Advocacy for Reform, Feb. 2009).

—Fifty-two percent of all incarcerated men and women are parents (Sentencing Project, 2009), and 75 percent of incarcerated women are mothers (Incarcerated Parents and Their Children, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, 2000).

—Sixty-three percent of federal prisoners and 55 percent of state prisoners are parents of children under age 18 (Incarcerated Parents and Their Children, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, 2000).

—More than 60 percent of parents in state prison and more than 80 percent of parents in federal prison are incarcerated more than 100 miles from their last place of residence; only 15 percent of parents in a state facility and about 5 percent of parents in a federal facility are incarcerated less than 50 miles from their last place of residence (Sentencing Project, 2009).

“THE HIGH COST OF CORRECTIONS IN AMERICA: INFOGRAPHIC”

Pew Center on the States has an AWESOME infographic on the American corrections system pictured above (go to the PEW website to view the graphic in an even larger size).

GA STATE SUPREME COURT STAYS MENTALLY DISABLED MAN’S EXECUTION…BUT NOT BECAUSE HE IS DISABLED

Warren Hill found out, just two hours before he was to be put to death, that his execution was stayed—not because of his mental disability, but to figure out if changes made to the state’s lethal injection procedures are in violation of GA law.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Bill Rankin has the story. Here’s a clip:

For more than a decade, Hill’s lawyers have sought to halt the execution on grounds the 52-year-old is mentally disabled. But Monday, with less than two hours to spare, the state high court unanimously granted the stay to determine whether a recent change to Georgia’s lethal-injection protocol violates state law. The court agreed to hear Hill’s appeal of a Fulton County judge’s decision issued earlier in the day.

Separately, by a 6-1 vote, the court declined to hear Hill’s appeal challenging the state’s standard to determine whether an inmate is mentally disabled and thus ineligible for execution. Justice Robert Benham, the lone dissenter, said he would not allow the execution because Hill has been found to have a mental disability.

Hill is on death row for the 1990 bludgeoning death of a fellow inmate at a southwest Georgia prison. At the time, he was serving a life sentence for killing his 18-year-old girlfriend in 1985.

Hill’s case attracted the attention of national and state advocacy groups for the developmentally disabled, who had asked for Hill to be allowed to serve the rest of his life in prison without parole. Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, had made a similar plea for mercy.

MAN WHO KILLED PARENTS AS A TEENAGER IS REMORSEFUL

Greg Ousley—now 33—killed his parents at age 14, was tried as an adult, and is currently serving out two 30-year sentences. Ousley was a troubled teen, living in a discordant home not unlike other youths who commit parricide. Nineteen years later, he has had time to develop and mature, and both corrections officials and all but one family member deem him fit to reenter society. Is a man who murdered his parents in middle school ready to be released?

Scott Anderson has a beautifully written story for the NY Times Magazine. Here are a few clips:

His former work supervisor, Cindy Estes, was more explicit. “This kid has jumped through every hoop the state has put in front of him,” she told me. “He deserves to come out. There’s absolutely nothing to be gained by keeping him in there for another 10 years.”

[SNIP]

…He set out on a painful journey of self-examination, trying to understand what he had done and why. One of the crueler paradoxes of his situation is that if he had been remanded into Indiana’s juvenile justice system, Greg would have received help in this process; Indiana places an emphasis on youthful offenders’ undergoing intensive behavioral and psychological therapy as a way for them to understand their actions and, it’s hoped, correct their course in the future.

But Greg entered an adult system where whatever psychological counseling existed was primarily geared toward helping an inmate cope with his incarceration, not examining how he got there in the first place. Going it alone, Greg began putting his thoughts to paper. His first effort, a 40-page handwritten essay begun when he was 19, took him 15 months to write and was titled, “Why I Killed My Parents.”

[SNIP]

Strong or not, Greg’s case is a telling one in the national debate over just what is accomplished by sentencing juveniles to long prison sentences. In the case of juvenile parricide, there is an added paradox. Because it is among the most target-specific of crimes, criminologists believe that an abused juvenile who killed a parent is likely to be at low risk of future criminality if he gets treatment and has a strong social support system when he is released. Certainly society might recoil at the notion that a child who murders his parents should be “let off” by a juvenile detention that might end at 18 or 21, but attached to this is the question of when the thirst for punishment becomes counterproductive to all concerned. After all, Greg Ousley, like 95 percent of other prison inmates, is going to come out some day, and is it better for society that he do so when he’s in his 30s and still has the potential of patching together a somewhat-normal life, or not until his 40s when his options will be far more limited?

In addition, NY Times Rachel Nolan has a Q & A with Scott Anderson (the author of the above referenced article). Here’s a small clip:

[Rachel:] What do we know about the experience of juvenile offenders after they’ve served lengthy prison terms? Are recidivism rates higher or lower than for others?

[Scott:] I don’t know what the overall recidivism rate for juveniles convicted as adults is, but for parent-killers like Greg in general (whether placed in juvie or tried as adults), almost all studies show that the recidivism rate is extremely low (although again it’s hard to state much with absolute confidence due to the low numbers of people who commit parricide). This undoubtedly has to do with the target-specific nature of their crime. I did see a study where they compared 10 parricidal juveniles with 10 who killed other family members and 10 who killed strangers. Those in the first group had the least prior history of delinquency and the lowest recidivism rate (as I recall, just 1 of the 10 engaged in later criminality), while those in the last group — who killed strangers — had the highest.

NY Times also has a photocopy of the essay Ousley wrote at age 19 titled: “Why I Killed My Parents,” along with a page written in a notebook a few days before he committed parricide in which he states, “This weekend I’m going to kill my parents.” Be sure to take a look at the post. It’s worth reading.

LAPD CUTS FINGERPRINT ANALYSIS TO 10 CASES PER MONTH, PER STATION

In an attempt to deal with an outrageous backlog of fingerprint analysis throughout the 21 stations, LAPD officials have decided to implement a new system of 10 cases per station, per month. (This isn’t the first time the issue of LAPD evidence backlog has come up, either. We’ve noted in previous years the excess of rape kits waiting to be analyzed and problems within the fingerprint analysis dept.)

The LA Times’ Joel Rubin has the story. Here’s a clip:

The LAPD’s beleaguered Latent Print Unit has failed to analyze fingerprints from about 2,200 burglaries, auto thefts and other property-related crimes, according to department figures. Detectives wait on average between two and three months to get print results back from the lab, LAPD officials said. In some cases, the delay can last more than a year and, in older cases in which the detectives have not pressed for analysis, prints are ignored altogether because the unit cannot keep up with the constant inflow of cases.

“In a perfect world, we’d get results back in a day or two,” said Michael Brausam, a detective in the LAPD’s Central Division. “The longer you leave these criminals out on the street, they’re likely going to be committing more crimes. And, if you do get a match on prints months later, it can be much harder to prove your case.”

And the prospect of the situation improving is bleak because of the city’s ongoing hiring freeze.

Since the freeze in 2009, the fingerprint unit has lost 27 of its 97 analysts. Over the next five years, 20% of the unit is expected to retire, officials said. Additionally, furloughs that are part of the city’s attempt to close a budget shortfall have exacerbated the problem, as have the neck and back injuries that analysts commonly suffer from long hours hunched over desks staring at prints through magnifying glasses.

Meanwhile, the demands on the unit continue unabated. Last year, detectives requested fingerprints to be collected at 19,000 crime scenes, and the pace so far this year is the same. As a result, LAPD officials have decided on a rationing plan that they hope will bring the workload in line with the unit’s capabilities.

BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA REAFFIRMS BAN ON GAYS

The Boy Scouts of America reconfirmed their policy banning both gay leaders and scouts on Tuesday. The story was covered widely, but WitnessLA thought that LA Times’ Steve Lopez made some excellent points. Here’s how he opens his column:

“The Boy Scouts of America is one of the nation’s largest and most prominent values-based youth developed organizations,” says the organization’s website. The BSA is about character and responsibility, and the group “has helped build the future leaders of this country by combining educational activities and lifelong values with fun.”

What kind of values?

Bigotry, for one.

On Tuesday, Boy Scouts of America has reaffirmed its policy of excluding gays as scouts or leaders.

“Scouting believes that good people can personally disagree on this topic and still work together to achieve the life-changing benefits to youth through scouting,” said a statement.

Pardon me, but I don’t get it. How can “good people” work together if some of them aren’t allowed in the door? Just because the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 let the BSA policy stand doesn’t make it any less odious.

Be sure to read on, as the rest of Steve’s article is worthwhile.

NEW FED. IMMIGRATION BILL AIMS TO KEEP FAMILIES TOGETHER

CA Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard proposed a bill Friday that would protect the rights of immigrant families caught up in the foster care system–keeping child service organizations from removing children born in America from their immigrant parents in deportation or immigrant detention situations.

KPCC’s Leslie Berestein Rojas has the story. Here’s how it opens:

A measure voted on last spring by the California Senate that could allow some immigrants in deportation to hold onto their children, avoiding the foster care system, has been joined at the federal level by a similar federal House bill.

Introduced by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles), HR 6128 proposes amending federal law to make it easier for the relatives of children whose parents are in deportation to act as legal guardians, and making it more difficult for state and local governments to terminate the parental rights of immigrants in removal proceedings. From the new bill:

H.R.6128 – To amend part E of title IV of the Social Security Act to ensure that immigration status alone does not disqualify a parent, legal guardian, or relative from being a placement for a foster child, to prohibit a State, country, or other political subdivision of a State from filing for termination of parental rights in foster care cases in which an otherwise fit and willing parent or legal guardian has been deported or is involved in (including detention pursuant to) an immigration proceeding, unless certain conditions have been met, and for other purposes.

EVERYTHING GITMO DETAINEES SAY IS CLASSIFIED

A new government order declares that anything that Guantanamo detainees say to their lawyers or in trial is presumed classified. The ACLU, one of the detainees’ lawyers, and various news sources are not thrilled, and have filed multiple objections.

ProPublica’s Cora Currier has the story. Here’s how it opens:

Can the government declare anything a Guantanamo detainee does or says automatically classified?

That’s the question posed by two challenges to a government order declaring “any and all statements” by the five detainees allegedly behind the 9/11 attacks “presumptively classified.” That includes their own accounts of their treatment, and even torture, at the hands of the U.S. government.

The government made that argument this spring at the start of the military commission trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others. The government says the defendants’ accounts, if made public without review by a government authority, could reveal details of the CIA’s detention and interrogation efforts.

Of course, much information about the programs—including torture of detainees—has long been public. The CIA’s so-called black-site prisons were acknowledged nearly six years ago by then-President Bush. More details about the program were released by President Obama in 2009.

The “presumptive classification” order extends to both detainees’ testimony and their discussions with their lawyers. In other words, anything said by a detainee, whether in court or to their counsel, will first need censors’ stamp of approval before it can become public.

LA DEPUTY MAY HAVE STOMPED ON STRUGGLING SUSPECT’S HEAD

An LASD deputy was caught on tape Friday appearing to stomp on a resisting suspect’s head. The LASD has relieved the deputy of duty with pay pending their investigation.

LA Times’ Robert Faturechi has the story. Here’s a clip:

It occurred Friday morning when deputies approached a man in downtown Los Angeles suspected of groping a woman’s chest. Authorities said the suspect, Alexis Husmario Torres, was uncooperative, initially refusing to take his hands out of his pockets and then fighting with deputies as they tried to restrain him.

A news crew from Telemundo caught much of the take-down on video. In parts of the footage, aired by NBC Los Angeles, the suspect is elbowed several times in the head while on the ground and stomped at least once in the head by a black-booted deputy.

Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said department officials were aware the arrest was caught on tape when they decided to launch the criminal probe but had not yet seen the footage. He said Telemundo has agreed to turn over its raw footage.

REPORT SAYS FELON DISENFRANCHISEMENT 5 TIMES GREATER THAN IN 1976

The Sentencing Project released a new report on felon disenfranchisement in the US, Thursday. According to the report, 5.85 million people were disenfranchised as of 2010–up from 1.17 million in 1976.

You can read the full report here, and you can listen to a discussion on the report and its implications by the executive director of The Sentencing Report, Marc Mauer, along with the University of Minnesota’s Chair of Sociology, Christopher Uggen, and a disenfranchised law student, Desmond Meade. (Yes, it’s long, but it’s worth listening to!) Here are some of the report’s highlights:

--Approximately 2.5 percent of the total U.S. voting age population – 1 of every 40 adults – is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction.

-Rates of disenfranchisement vary dramatically by state due to broad variations in voting prohibitions. In six states – Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia – more than 7 percent of the adult population is disenfranchised.

-1 of every 13 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than four times greater than non-African Americans. Nearly 7.7 percent of the adult African American population is disenfranchised compared to 1.8 percent of the non-African American population.

-African American disenfranchisement rates also vary significantly by state. In three states – Florida (23 percent), Kentucky (22 percent), and Virginia (20 percent) – more than one in five African Americans is disenfranchised.

SAN DIEGO PRISONER REENTRY PROGRAM DROPS FELONY RECIDIVISM RATE

The San Diego Prisoner Reentry Program, recently discontinued due to lack of funding, cut non-violent felony recidivism rates by 17%. The program ran for five years and saved an estimated $10M in prisoner costs.

Scoop San Diego has the story. Here’s a clip:

The San Diego Prisoner Reentry Program, authorized under California Senate Bill 618, cut recidivism among non-violent felony offenders by 17 percent, resulting in savings of $10 million over five years, according to a new study released by the SANDAG Criminal Justice Research Division.

The findings from this study’s final report, Improving Reentry for Ex-Offenders in San Diego County, are particularly relevant as local jurisdictions grapple with an influx of ex-offenders being shifted from state oversight to local supervision under state Assembly Bill 109. The population served by the Reentry Program is similar to the population shifted by the public safety realignment.

Under the San Diego Prisoner Reentry Program, which operated from February 2007 through June 2012 (when funding was discontinued), participants received intensive support services to help them with housing, employment, drug treatment, and other needs.

GA AND TX SET TO EXECUTE TWO MENTALLY DISABLED PRISONERS NEXT WEEK

Texas and Georgia each have particularly controversial executions scheduled for next Wednesday–one prisoner with clear evidence of brain damage, and the other declared mentally retarded by a state judge.

The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen has the story. Here’s how it opens:

Next Wednesday, July 18, reckons to be another banner day in the history of capital punishment in America. Sometime between 6 p.m. and midnight, the state of Texas is scheduled to execute a convicted murderer named Yokamon Hearn, a man who has, since early childhood, shown clear and consistent evidence of brain damage. And at 7 p.m., the state of Georgia plans to execute a convicted murderer named Warren Hill, who years ago was deemed by a veteran state judge to be mentally retarded.

These executions will take place, absent extraordinary Supreme Court or gubernatorial intervention, because federal and state judges at lower levels of our nation’s justice system have perversely interpreted recent United States Supreme Court decisions. Whereas the Justices have tried in the past few years to give men like Hearn and Hill more access to meaningful appellate review, judicial obstructionists down below have refused to apply either the letter or the spirit of the new procedural rules.

In Texas, the perpetually rogue Fifth Circuit, in an opinion dripping with disdain for the justices in Washington, has just refused to apply the precedent established in Martinez v. Ryan, a Supreme Court decision issued in March that sought to expand appellate rights for defendants like Hearn. In Georgia, meanwhile, the state supreme court has refused to designate Hill as mentally retarded, scoffing at the mandate of Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court’s ruling banning the execution of the mentally retarded.

Graph taken from The Sentencing Project.

On Tuesday, the ACLU of Southern California, along with a criminal defense law firm and two law professors, announced a major law suit that charges that the LA District Attorney’s policy regarding what exculpatory evidence it chooses to hand over to defense attorneys, violates the law—and may have tainted hundreds—or even thousands—of cases.

At Tuesday’s press conferences, the ACLU also challenged the policy of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department having to do with tracking complaints filed against specific deputies by inmates, charging that the LASD’s present policy is illegal in that it makes it impossible for defendants to discover such complaints for trial, when evidence of previous deputy misconduct could have a huge bearing on their defense.

“CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE”

First let’s take the DA’s side of the lawsuit: In 1963 the US Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision known as Brady v. Maryland. In plain English, Brady placed an affirmative constitutional duty on a prosecutor to disclose exculpatory evidence to a defendant—-”exculpatory” meaning that it could help clear the defendant from blame.

Put another way, if the prosecution runs across some piece of evidence that favors the defense, even if it torpedos the prosecutor’s case, the DA is legally bound to fork the evidence over. Period. No wiggle room.

A district attorney’s first mission and sacred mandate is to seek justice. The mission is not winning at all costs.

However, according to the ACLU lawyers, the LA District Attorney’s office has a written policy stating that all Brady evidence, before it is turned over to the defense, must be determined to be true “using a standard of clear and convincing evidence which is higher than a preponderance of evidence but less than beyond a reasonable doubt.”

(You can read the rest of the LA DA’s policy on their website.)

In other words, rather than allowing a judge and/or jury to assess whether the exculpatory evidence is true and righteous—the DA’s office gives itself the power to make that call when it comes to any evidence it runs across that might harm one of its cases.

This is something that the cynical among us might see as a little conflict-of-interest-y.

“They’ve usurped power that is not theirs,” is how Peter Eliasberg, the ACLU’s Legal Director, puts it.

THE LA COUNTY JAIL FACTOR

Which brings us to the LASD side of the lawsuit.

First, however, it helps to know the legal underpinnings for the ACLU’s charges against the sheriff’s department:

In 1974, the California Supreme Court ruled on a case known as Pitchess v. Superior Court, which resulted in the legal tool called the Pitchess motion. This is the request made by a defendant in a criminal case for access to information in the personnel file of an arresting police officer to see if he or she has received previous allegations of misconduct.

Since the 1974 decision, a defendant’s right to information about alleged officer misconduct or dishonesty has been established by statute in California Evidence Code.

But, although a defendant’s attorney may successfully file a Pitchess motion to find out about citizen complaints of brutality or misconduct against an LAPD officer or an LASD deputy, if the sheriff’s deputy is working in the LA County jails, all the rules change.

It turns out that jailhouse complaints—reports the ACLU— are not filed in the deputies’ personnel folders, nor are the complaints tracked in the sheriff’s department database created for that purpose, the Personnel Performance Index, or PPI.

In the jails, said the ACLU’s Peter Eliasberg, incredibly, the inmates complaints of deputy abuse are filed under the inmate’s name—not under the deputy’s name.

So if defense attorneys use a Pitchess motion to request the complaints made against a particular deputysaid Eliasberg, “they get nothing.” Since a pattern of such complaints could be vital evidence in cases where an inmate has been beaten by a deputy or deputies—and then charged with assault by that same deputy.

The ACLU’s lawsuit contends that this policy is a glaring violation of state law, and may have had a damaging affect on a huge number of cases.

Interestingly, even the DA’s office appears to agree with the ACLU that the Sheriff’s Department is in the wrong with its policy.

WitnessLA has obtained a copy of a June 22 letter sent by Steve Cooley’s office to the director of LA’s Indigent Criminal Defense Appointment saying that “upon learning about this practice” DA Cooley had contacted Sheriff Lee Baca “to express his disapproval.”

Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said the department disagreed with what it had heard of the ACLU’s charges. “I don’t know if we’ve had a chance to really study their lawsuit,” Whitmore told me. “But we’ve done nothing illegal, nothing secret, nothing inappropriate. We’re not withholding evidentiary information.”

Both the Office of Independent Review and Special Counsel Merrick Bob have pushed to have inmate complaints put in a deputy’s file, as citizen complaints are for patrol deputies, but as of their June 2012 newsletter, ALADS, the LASD deputies union, vehemently opposed the move.

JONATHAN GOODWIN: A CASE IN POINT

Jonathan Goodman, a 30 year-old who was released from jail two months ago, told how he had been an inmate at Men’s Central Jail when, on December 4, 2010 he was beaten by Sheriff’s Deputies, and that a Deputy Beas, in particular, had started the assault without any provocation.

As has been frequently reported in such cases, although Goodwin was injured in the beat down, it was he who was charged with assault.

From what Goodwin described of what had happened, his attorney thought there might be other inmates who’d also run afoul of Deputy Beas. But she got nothing from a Pitchess motion. However, when she contacted the ACLU she found that that they knew of some inmates who’d had reportedly been beaten up by the same deputy whom Goodwin said had been his attacker.

Two of those inmates testified on Goodwin’s behalf in trial and, in an unusual turn of events, the judge and jury believed the inmates, not the deputies. Goodwin was acquitted two months ago, on May 8, 2012.

But it was just luck and the persistance of his public defender, Goodwin told those assembled for the press conference.

He was to find out later that, although multiple inmate complaints had been filed on Deputy Beas, Goodwin’s antagonist, the LASD still did not produce them in response to a Pitchess motion. “Nor did the DA give [his attorney] sworn statements about Deputy Beas,” he said.

“I stand before you a free man,” Goodwin said at the ACLU press conference, ” But the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s office tried to deprive me of my right to a free trial. …Had it not been for some good fortune and the hard work of my defense attorney…If the Sheriff’s Department “had succeeded in suppressing evidence that Deputy Beas had assaulted other inmates…I could have done as much as 19 years in prison,” he said.

“I’m sure there are a lot of others out there who weren’t as lucky as I was,” Goodwin said.

ON LARRY MANTLE’S AIR TALK ABOUT SHERIFF’S LATEST REALIGNMENT STRATEGY

On Tuesday morning, I was on Larry Mantle’s Air Talk talking about realignment and jail overcrowding in response to an LA Times article on the topic. (It was just a quickie interview, and was still somewhat flu-ridden but I think I completed at least most of my sentences. Listen for yourself, if you’re in the mood.)

OH, AND THERE’S THIS STORY ABOUT 200 BADGES FOR BOZOS BEING RECALLED BY THE LASD... Yes, yes, I realize that not all of the badges handed out—and now recalled—went to….you know….bozos. But the aliteration was tempting and the photo accompanying the story by the LA Times Robert Faturechi and Jeff Gottlieb suggests severe bozo-oisity.

Photo’s courtesy of the ACLU

SHOULD DEFENDANTS WITH FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME BE SAFE FROM DEATH PENALTY?

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a defect caused in utero that impairs brain activity in ways similar to mental retardation. As of 2002, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a mentally retarded defendant to death row. Now, there are many cases seeking to exclude the death penalty for defendants suffering from FAS. Mark Anthony Soliz, one such defendant–convicted in March of killing a grandmother in her home–has started his appeals process.

The Star-Telegram’s Dianna Hunt has the story. Here’s a clip:

Soliz’s appeal of his capital murder conviction in the death of a Godley grandmother has joined a growing list of cases nationwide seeking to exclude the death penalty for defendants with fetal alcohol syndrome, a form of brain damage caused by maternal alcohol abuse.

Experts say the death penalty should be off the table in such cases, just as the U.S. Supreme Court has abolished the death penalty for defendants with mental retardation.

Prosecutors and victims advocates, however, say it’s a guise for going easy on killers who show no such mercy to their victims.

[SNIP]

…In a groundbreaking decision in the Atkins case in 2002, the Supreme Court held that executing a person who is mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment‘s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The deficiencies associated with mental retardation, the court concluded, reduce a person’s culpability in the crime.

Experts say the same rules should apply to people with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Those people have the same diminished capacities as those with mental retardation, they say, even though their IQs may test somewhat higher than the 70-75 range typically used to define mental retardation.

“The damage to the executive functioning of the brain is as severe as someone who is intellectually disabled,” said John Niland, director of the Capital Trial Project with the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit law firm in Houston and Austin that also provides training and consultation for attorneys in death penalty cases. “I don’t think we’ve been aware of it long enough to identify all of the cases.”

CA’S “ANTI-ARIZONA” IMMIGRATION BILL TO CUT TIES WITH ICE

California’s TRUST Act–also called the “Anti-Arizona” bill–passed CA senate late last week. If signed into law, law enforcement officers would no longer be allowed to send immigrants to ICE (for deportation) unless they had committed a violent crime or a felony.

Time’s Amy Friedman has the story. Here’s how it opens:

California is taking a stand on immigration – and it doesn’t exactly jive with a recent ruling by the Supreme Court on the issue. Last week, the California State Senate passed the TRUST Act, a move that is in direct contrast to the high court decision upholding a controversial provision of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law requiring police to check the status of people they stop for another reason, if they suspect the person is undocumented. This new bill, also being called the “Anti-Arizona” bill, would lower the number of deportations in the wake of the commission of minor crimes. The TRUST Act will now go to the California state assembly and will most likely pass.

The law would mean that, contrary to what goes on now, evidence of against an immigrant could only be passed on to federal officials after a violent or serious felony. Currently, getting pulled over for merely pausing at a stop sign could mean your fingerprints get sent straight to the feds.

DRUG DOG WITH SUB-PAR SUCCESS RATE RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT PROBABLE CAUSE

A Pittsburgh man is facing drug charges after a drug-sniffing dog alerted officers to his vehicle. His attorneys say that due to the dog’s shoddy 26% accuracy rate, there was no probable cause for the vehicle search. This is a serious issue, but also an irresistible story.

The Examiner’s Christine Funk has the story. Here’s a clip:

Herbert Green is facing cocaine charges after a drug dog alerted on Mr. Green’s vehicle. However, the dog’s alert track record is worse than the flip of a coin. Attorneys for Mr. Green argued that because the dog had a track record of 85 alerts but only 22 discoveries of drugs, the alert lacked probable cause for law enforcement to search the vehicle.

Judge Glen Conrad conceded the dog “may not be a model of canine accuracy,” but also took into consideration the dog’s training, as well as his “flawless performance” on re-certification tests. One might reasonably wonder about the nature and quality of the re-certification tests, if a dog can be “flawless” on the tests, but have only a 26% accuracy rate in the field.

Naysayers have repeatedly asked why Michael Nash, the presiding judge of Los Angeles County’s juvenile courts, insisted on opening Family Dependency Court to responsible reporters—despite a raft of vociferous objections and various legal challenges.

A new story by the LA Times’ Garrett Therolf demonstrates precisely why Nash felt it was essential to shine a light into into these formerly secretive proceedings.

Here’s how the story opens:

The mother acknowledged she unleashed a bitter torrent of accusations against the social workers who took her children last year, calling incessantly to claim they were being abused in foster care.

But what the workers did in return has drawn a stern rebuke from a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. Amy Pellman, a jurist with deep experience in the county’s child welfare system, said they misused their power by retaliating and harassing the family.

After she affirmed a referee’s decision to return the children to their mother, Pellman declared that the workers acted out of “bad blood” to unravel the family’s progress and place the children at risk of being retaken by the county. “They told me they hate me just as much as I hate them,” the mother said in an interview.

The mother, who spoke on the condition that her family not be identified in The Times out of fear that such a disclosure might prompt increased scrutiny, said she never felt more broken. “Every time there’s a knock on the door, my heart skips a beat,” she said. “It can go wrong so easily. I still carry the scars.”

Therolf describes how the mom and dad had struggled with chronic homelessness for years but how, also, they “had strengths.” He reports, however, that when the parents started to right themselves enough that they were able to get their kids back, the social workers in charge of their case appeared to actively sabotage the parents’ healthy efforts.

For instance, according to Therolf, the mean girl workers did the following:

Read the rest of this entry »